DGM: Protection
by Lilac Lenalee
Summary: It's Allen Walker's 16th birthday, and Lenalee is determined to make it a success. AllenxLenalee oneshot.


**A/N: This is a quick little LenaleexAllen oneshot I just did spur of the moment. Please keep in mind, it's been a while since I've written anything, and this fanfic was purely written for my own enjoyment and without a whole lot of thought. It may not be entirely accurate, but please just use your imagination to ignore that if that's the case. I really do hope you manage to enjoy!**

**Notes: "Nii-san" is Japanese for "older brother", and it's what Lenalee calls Komui in the anime. Also, the suffix "-kun" is often used by the Japanese when they are acknowledging people who are younger then themselves, especially boys. Lenalee also uses "-kun" at the end of Allen's name in the anime.**

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"Nii-san!"

With the accuracy only a seasoned exorcist could perform, Komui Lee was swatted fiercely across the face with a spatula by an apron-clad Lenalee.

"How many times do I have to tell you? You're not allowed in here until I'm _done_!"

A traumatized shriek ripped the air in half. "B-But, LENALEE!" Komui gasped, hands and knees now dragging across the floor as he performed his best look of neglect. "You never make _me_ cupcakes on my birthday! SO WHY IS ALLEN SO SPECIAL?"

A thunderstorm of sobbing began to tumble forcefully through the kitchen, jolting Lenalee's mind into a state of throbbing discomfort. Apparently her wish of baking cupcakes in a tranquil, quiet environment was now nothing but a fairytale.

"Nii-san", Lenalee knelt calmly to her knees, her insides twisting like wrung-out dish towels as she swallowed down her growing anger. "I'm only doing this to be nice." She managed to sprout a sweet little smile.

Komui's eyes suddenly morphed into two black holes of distress. "Nice? NICE?"

His avalanche of ridiculously delusional objections began to terrorize the room yet again, burying anyone within auditory range with its melancholic despair. With well-honed patience Lenalee grabbed him by the collar of his lab coat, whipped around, and began to drag his thrashing body back towards his vacant workstation, similar to a lion carrying its near-dead prey.

"Why, Lenalee? _Why_ are you causing me so much distress—"

"It's your own fault, Nii-san!" Her blood had nearly reached its boiling point. "It's not _me_ who's mastered the art of blowing things ridiculously out of proportion—"

A word-arresting gasp seemed to suck every echelon of air from the room. "It's because he's 16 now, isn't it?" The words dropped from Komui's mouth like poison coated bombs.

"What?" Lenalee choked slightly on her own perplexity. "Nii-san, that has nothing to do with—"

"I KNEW IT!" Eyes now black infernos, Komui was already terminally infected by his newest explanation for Lenalee's explicit showcase of affection before his sister could even get an antidotal word in edgewise.

"That really isn't it…" Lenalee giggled awkwardly, her blood fizzing from all the chaotic dramatization. "I'm honestly not doing this for any special reason, Nii-san."

He cast Lenalee a numbing look of disbelief. "Really?"

"Really."

As she flipped off another innocent giggle, she felt her heart gawk, as if even it couldn't believe the words she had just uttered. Had they really been purely steeped in truth?

Walking without conscious consent, Lenalee felt a memory poking at her thoughts, its influence taking over so suddenly even Komui's pitiful whimpering was put on mute as its images began their masquerade.

_The hallways were vibrating in warm chatter as Lenalee maneuvered her way towards her brother's office, a tray of steaming coffee mugs balancing masterfully on her hand. A light hum was seeping gently from her lips, and she could feel her hair kissing her shoulder blades as she strode forward. She continued around the corner of the hall, unexpectedly feeling her blood begin to flow the wrong way as she nearly bumped into Allen Walker. His indigo eyes shot wide open as he reflexively dodged Lenalee's armful of coffee, his white hair flailing atop his face before he finally regained a sense of balance. He completed his act of clumsiness with a bashful grin._

"_Hey, Lenalee," he stuttered, hand now rubbing the back of his head nervously. "Sorry about nearly destroying your order of coffee."_

"_It's okay," Lenalee smiled warmly; somehow Allen's morning cheerfulness always had a rather contagious effect on her. "I actually had something I needed to ask you, Allen-kun."_

_She felt the weight of the tray leave her hand as Allen took hold of it, a stubborn look of repayment now etched across his face. "Here, I'll walk with you."_

_Sighing, Lenalee decided not to bother fighting over who carried the cups of liquid caffeine; instead, she began matching her footsteps with Allen's. She peered subtly at the side of his face, his flesh-red scar winking at her from beneath his off-white bangs._

"_I was supposed to ask you whether you wanted anything special for tomorrow," Lenalee began, the sound of her footsteps now indiscernible from Allen's. "Seeing as it's your birthday."_

_His walking came to a standstill. "Special?"_

"_Right," Lenalee halted next to him, her hair barreling with silky grace over her shoulders. "The Order likes to throw special little parties for its members, and they like it if they have ideas to work off of."_

_Allen remained rooted to the ground. Time seemed to be balancing on a pause button, rendering each unable to move forward, until Allen finally broke free of the temporary standstill and strode forward without the slightest of hesitations. His face had grown strangely thoughtful, as if stuck in a pool of hard-to-see memories._

"_I can't even remember the last time someone celebrated my birthday with me."_

_This time it was Lenalee who stopped in her tracks; her body, for some unknown reason, had frozen up at the way he had so vaguely uttered such a statement. He made it seem as if it were completely normal to be treated like a forgotten human being, that it was okay to relish such ice-coated, spiky feelings. She felt her heart begin to tremble. _

"_Lenalee?" A look of surprise innocently popped onto Allen's face as he turned slightly towards her._

"_Oh, don't mind me."_

_Hastily Lenalee skipped to Allen's side once again, though the unexpected weight of his words was still festering in the depths of her heart. His words always did have a way of getting to her like that, leaving her grappling at their true, deeper meaning as she desperately whisked away at the fake, cheery dust of innocence concealing their intended implication. It was enough to make her heart burn in sympathetic rage. "But is what you said… is it really true, Allen-kun?"_

_Again he fixed his mouth into his sweet, signature smile, the one that Lenalee was sure was intended to dissolve people's worries and just force them to smile along with him; a strategic way of eliminating discomfort from any situation, as if he could exorcise the lonely feeling and free it from its growing isolation. "Yes."_

_How could he say it so… so happily? Was that echo of loneliness really deeper in breadth than Lenalee could hear with her own instinctive set of ears? _

_They were quickly approaching the door to her brother's main office. She allowed Allen to walk a few paces ahead of her, a determined goal now forming deep within her heart._

"_I'll make sure you have a great birthday tomorrow, Allen. I…" the word snagged against her suddenly dry throat as Allen rested his soulful gaze on her, his eyes like unblinking amethyst crystals. "… I promise." _

The way he was able to penetrate right through people's eyes with such a delicate, doe-like glance still took Lenalee off-guard every time. It haunted her, really, knowing how he could sink so deeply into the windows of her soul; him and his cursed eye. The comfort level she felt when he did that didn't match up with her feelings of self-consciousness, making her feel icy hot and tingly all in one nauseating wave. She truly hated those eyes.

"Lenalee!"

Startled from her thoughts, Lenalee gave a frantic swing of the head, her eyes adjusting at their own sloth-like time onto a smirking Lavi.

"Lavi!"

The red-headed boy gave a quick look over his shoulder before turning back to Lenalee, his face twisted into an interesting expression of both concern and one holding back laughter. "Didn't you say you were gonna make Allen's cupcakes?"

She didn't know why this seemed to be turning into such a big deal. "Yeah, why?"

"'Cause they're currently burning."

An emergency flare went spiraling up Lenalee's legs as the reality of the news fully melded with her mind. "CRAP!"

As if partnered by the wind Lenalee's legs rocketed from their takeoff position, her metallic turquoise pigtails streaming behind her like exotic colored jet streams as she picked up speed.

She reached the Order's kitchen in a screeching flurry, sending a cloud of smoke cartwheeling to the side as it hungrily crawled out from beneath the doorframe. Without even fully catching her breath she began mazing through the blanket of thick gray smoke lurking behind the door, its musky tang clawing at her throat till she choked and spluttered. She could hear the timer screaming at her like a starving newborn baby.

Eyes stinging with tears, she relied on muscle memory to locate the raging oven; blindly she fingered the area before her, eventually finding the oven door handle and yanking it open till it breathed a huge sigh of stinky black smoke. She began coughing dryly into her arm, polluted tears marring her porcelain complexion.

"Is everything okay in here?"

Lenalee turned to where she assumed the doorway was, the gray smoke now thinning to a blunt haze as she eyed a dim outline not too far from her hacking body. She attempted a response, but only managed to produce a weak wheezing sound.

As the smoke made its descent to less polluted air, Lenalee realized with a sharp cough that the person at the door was Allen.

"Allen-kun!"

Fanning his way towards her, Allen reached for the oven dial and turned it off with a dull click, his face smudged by the light smoke screen embracing him. From the look on his face, however, Lenalee incurred that it was already too late; the cupcakes that had been carefully baking within the oven, rising and sweetening with every minute of warmth that ticked by, had now evolved into trays of what looked like inedible balls of lead.

"Shit," Lenalee groaned, her eyes spewing streams of superheated tears, "I never have had the time to learn how to bake."

She felt a hand gently rest atop her shoulder. "Lenalee…"

"I'm so sorry, Allen-kun," her voice was barely a whisper. "Now you'll have nothing special to eat for your birthday."

"Lenalee…" Allen's arms delicately wrapped themselves around Lenalee's shoulders until she was being embraced in a hug. "It's okay, really."

She turned around, her breath jamming in her throat as she realized just how close she actually was to Allen. "But, Allen-kun…"

"It's fine, Lenalee." The firmness of his words seemed to calm her frazzled senses, even with their gentle disposition. "Because…. "

She watched as Allen plucked out a black cupcake, pieces of it crumbling to the ground like ash as he proceeded to dip it into an open bowl of snow-white icing. He presented his five-second creation with a cheerful smirk, eyes twinkling with a sort of mischievous sparkle. "We'll just give these to Kanda, right?"

With an uncontrollable giggle, Lenalee felt the guilt of the situation lift ever so slightly from her conscience, allowing her senses to take a much needed exhale of relief.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALLEN!"

A storm of cheers erupted as an army of cupcakes was revealed to a previously blindfolded Allen. Rows upon rows of chocolate bottomed cupcakes with snow-kissed caps stood before the birthday boy, each one proudly showing off a single glowing candle.

"Blow 'em out!" Lavi jeered, his elbow jabbing Allen's ribs with a friendly shove. Lenalee couldn't help but inhale with him as he stuffed every ounce of air as humanely possible into his lungs; then, with one giant heave, he released his store of oxygen upon the cupcake army in one massive curve, the mob of tiny orange flames thrashing wildly before they sizzled into a steaming black wick. A surge of hollering sounded immediately after as the room realized all but one candle had been blown out successfully.

"Allen has ONE girlfriend!" Lavi informed the entire room, his arm roughly strung around Allen's shoulder as he messed his hair with his other hand. "Wonder who it'll be…"

Lenalee intentionally allowed herself to zone out as she marveled at the population of creamy cupcakes before her. Initially her and Allen had gotten right back to work making a whole new, fresh batch (after much convincing on Allen's part that he was okay making his own birthday cupcakes), but once they had been ratted out (more like spied out) by Komui, playtime had been put to an end, and the Order's scientists had gladly volunteered to help make more cupcakes in their place. It had been a fun afternoon, a rare time of pure relaxation where Lenalee didn't have to have thoughts of akumas and death lurking at the fringes of her mind. She felt a satisfied sigh slip through her lips.

"Time to FEAST!"

Cupcakes began flying off the table as desperate hands attempted to secure one before someone else did. A few greedy pairs were snatching five or six when they felt no one was looking, while a few exceedingly greedy individuals (namely, Allen and Lavi) were stuffing all within reach right into their drooling mouths. Lenalee made the wise decision of not joining the siege.

"Oh…" a sudden reminder flitted into Lenalee's mind, taking her focus away from the party at hand and onto a far more personal subject that she had nearly neglected up until right then. As discreetly as she possibly could, she tiptoed out of the cafeteria and into the seemingly endless maze of hallways leading to all of the Order members' rooms, hair swinging with silent secrecy behind her.

A melody of chatter protruded from the cafeteria as Lenalee made her way back in with stealthy sneakiness, her back pressed against the wall as she shuffled further in. The lights were dim, giving one the impression that a show or a formal dance was occurring, when, in reality, all who remained were those who enjoyed partying till the wee hours and those who had already had their fair share of alcohol for the night. Lenalee let her back slide gruffly down the wall till the floor rammed her butt, her knees propped into a V as she innocently began viewing the party from the sidelines.

She was taken off guard, however, when a cupcake magically appeared before her eyes. She looked to see Allen squatting down at her level, a perfectly groomed cupcake resting atop his hand.

"I noticed you didn't get one," he answered without being asked. Lenalee took it shyly, her cheeks tingling for reasons she wasn't particularly in the mood for interpreting. "And I know how much you love icing."

The childish little smile that accompanied the statement wasn't helping Lenalee's now fizzling cheeks; she was transported back to her time of fun in the afternoon, when her and Allen had just finished lacing cupcakes in creamy clumps of icing. She had thoughtlessly ripped the finished bowl of sugary goodness right out of Allen's unsuspecting grasp and licked it clean within five seconds flat, producing a look of such potent shock on Allen's face that, at the time, Lenalee had laughed till her stomach cringed in rebellion. It was a weakness of hers not many people in the world knew about, and with good reason.

"Thanks," she managed to mutter. Quietly she nibbled at the cupcake, her gaze cast away and down from Allen, who was now sitting beside her, as his party continued to unravel before them.

"Um, Allen-kun?" Lenalee finally spoke up, her blood tingling with suspense. She brushed her hand against a tiny brown package sitting next to her, a black ribbon snugly hugging its exterior. Lenalee smiled as she extended it towards Allen. "Happy birthday."

Allen's look of content was now replaced with a look of unexpected wonderment as he wordlessly accepted the gift, his eyes scraping every crease and fold as he gently dissected into its unknown innards. Lenalee felt her grip tighten around her knees as her present became fully visible within its cradle of gift wrap.

"I made it," she added quickly, her eyes watching nervously as Allen picked up what appeared to be a braid of multi-colored strings. "Here—"

Making sure to avoid Allen's direct gaze, Lenalee grabbed the string and delicately wrapped it around his outstretched wrist, her fingers solely focused on tying the bracelet at just the right point of tightness.

"I used special thread I purchased when I was in Singapore," Lenalee continued softly. "The red is supposed to represent strength, the purple represents luck, the green fortune, the blue peace, and the yellow happiness."

With a hint of laughter, Lenalee allowed herself to smile before letting Allen admire the bracelet now snuggly tied around his wrist. "I used to make a lot of jewelry when I was younger, because it was the only thing I could put my mind fully into without having to be concerned about my future as an exorcist."

"It's really nice, Lenalee," Allen grinned at her thankfully. "I can't even remember the last time I was given a meaningful present like this before."

Her throat began to burn. She felt it constrict with unwillingness, as if she had swallowed burning hot tea, and her eyes began to vibrate within their sockets; the stress of holding back tears was quickly entering uncontrollable mode. Her real feelings and the true intentions they harbored were beginning to eat away at her with acidic pleasure, weakening her emotional barrier and frying her insides till she shook with cathartic bile. She didn't want to cry, not in front of Allen, not on his birthday…

"Lenalee—" Allen's palm warmed the top of her unmoving hand, making her twitch and instinctively yank it away.

"It's so delicate…" Lenalee breathed, tears now shivering at the bottom of her eyelid. "That hand of yours… Allen-kun… "

A strange silence overtook the two exorcists, a silence in which Lenalee was coldly aware Allen was looking at her with those terrible eyes of his again.

"I just wanted to protect your hand…"

She felt the warmth of a hand suddenly brush against her wet cheek; shakily, she placed her own hand overtop the one resting against her face. His warmth began to seep into her, only just the very tips of her fingers at first, but, very slowly, her entire palm felt the comforting sensation, too. It was soothing, yet extremely frightening, all in one bewildering sensation. Lenalee closed her eyes, her blood lulled to sleep by the reassurance of Allen's warm touch.

"Thank you, Lenalee. Thank you so much."

Lenalee felt her slippery skin slide slightly away from Allen's hand as she finally plucked enough courage to look him straight in the eyes. Her face was sore and pulsing with heat, her mouth shaking like an animal clinging to life, but at that moment in time she didn't even care. Allen's eyes, they were gazing at her with that same twinkle of understanding, as if he knew exactly what she was feeling, exactly what she was experiencing…

"I hate it when you do that."

It was then that it dawned on her. Allen's eyes, like boiling spheres of ice, cold pits of comfort, deserted holes of truth… they were so beautiful. They were so beautiful, she hated them. Lenalee simply adored that gaze so much that it made her sick. She could feel his hand sliding further along her face, until it was almost tangled within her hair, and she wondered why she could feel her shaky breaths rebounding off Allen's warm face. She could feel her body almost willingly inching closer to Allen's, yearning to press right up against his undeniable warmth and feel that satisfying twinge of support that seemed to balance on the edge of a pin, just for a touch longer…

"Allen-kun… I hate it…"

Her eyes closed, too frightened to even process what was evolving before her, yet she still knew what was happening, what was going to happen…

"GAHHHHHHH I KNEW IT! LENALEEEEEEE!"

Both Allen and Lenalee jumped right out of their skin as Komui's alarm call of sisterly complex ricocheted throughout the cafeteria, most likely shattering every pair of eardrums that were unfortunate enough to come into contact with such a terrifying sound.

"N-Nii-san—"

"Walker, step away from the girl!" Komui was heaving maliciously above the pair, a remote control firmly clutched in his left hand as he glared with undeniable fury at the boy he believed was sucking Lenalee dry of any purity she had flouncing gloriously within her. "And Lenalee…."

Lenalee braced herself, ready for yet another insane outburst.

"I'LL NEVER SEND YOU TWO ON A MISSION TOGETHER AGAIN!"

Lenalee let her head bang against the hardness of the wall, her mouth hanging open in tired irritation. Her brother's overly dramatic, one-man soap opera was starting to get_ extremely_ infuriating. His stupid attempts at bubble-wrapping her, she no longer needed that sense of protection solely from him. There were others, too…

She heard a frightened yelp in the distance.

Allen was now being chased by yet another version of her brother's ridiculous Komurin robot, laser beams bouncing off the walls and floors like some kind of violent disco ball as he dodged them with accelerating speed. Pushing herself to her feet, Lenalee prepped herself to destroy the damned thing, her Innocence throbbing at the idea of being activated. The least she could do for Allen was, after all, spare him his life on his birthday.

She smiled, her face stiff with dried up tears. She needed that warm touch of his, more than she liked to admit. No… she wanted it. She wanted it more so than she probably even needed. And she would do anything… anything, to protect that warmth. Anything.

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**A/N: Thank you so much for reading this! All reviews/faves are GREATLY appreciated, so please feel free. Like I said before, it has been quite a while since I've written last, and I could feel that when I first started writing this. It was like first trying to exercise after a summer of junk food and TV! So I know this probably isn't that great of a story, and I had a rough time coming up with a quick little plot that I could write about, but I do hope I can write something a lot better with AllenxLenalee in the near future. They are SO DAMN CUTE TOGETHER! But anyways, this was a really rough oneshot, most likely not that great, and before I shut up, please please PLEASE ****NO SPOILERS****! I am only on episode 90 of -Man, and I have yet to read the manga, so DO NOT SPOIL IT FOR ME, please! Anyways, on that note, thanks for reading, hope it didn't burn your eyes away…**


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